As Tennessee battles raging wildfires, forcing an evacuation of thousands of people, a number of people on Twitter are mocking their plight, suggesting residents there deserve it for voting for Donald Trump. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, the epicenter of the wildfires because of their proximity to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, are popular holiday resorts for conservative and Christian families from the region. The towns have a number of attractions and wholesome family activities, including Dollywood. Some of the tweets, instead of expressing horror, are declaring “let them burn” and “too bad it’s not the whole state burning.” The tweeters...

No one listened to Tom Vilsack. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election. “The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to, to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in...

Democrats in rural America have a blunt message for the rest of their party: We saw the electoral disaster coming — and it’s your fault. Strategists and party officials say their warnings about the party’s lackluster outreach to rural voters went unheeded by Democratic leaders for years, culminating in this month’s shock defeat to Donald Trump. A presidential candidate who actually performed poorly in many cities and suburbs nonetheless scored an upset victory because of a surge in support from small towns and rural areas. To these old Democratic political hands — many of whom hail from well outside the...

Ravaged by months of drought, huge swaths of the southeast United States are on fire, but you wouldn’t know it judging by national media coverage.A total of six states in the southeast (Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi) are currently suffering from “exceptional drought,” a category reserved for the most severe drought conditions, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. The majority of land in four states (Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia) are facing “extreme drought,” the second most severe level.(snip)But because it’s not happening in New York or D.C. or Los Angeles, it doesn’t really count...

MEMO: Pennsylvania’s Red State Status November 27, 2016 Filed in News, Press Releases 11 DATE: November 27, 2016 TO: Interested Parties FROM: PA GOP Chairman Rob Gleason RE: Pennsylvania’s Red State Status On November 8th, 2016, Donald Trump made history when he turned Pennsylvania red for the first time since 1988. In addition, Pennsylvania Republicans helped re-elect U.S. Senator Pat Toomey and 13 Congressmen as well as expand our majorities in the State Senate and State House. In recent days, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has decided to launch baseless attacks against the integrity of Pennsylvania’s election system as well...

ROBERTS COUNTY, TX (KFDA) - A small town in the Texas Panhandle is having to deal with some unwanted attention after being dubbed the "Most Pro-Trump county in the Nation." Though the election is over, voices of supporters for both parties remain loud and clear. But the small town of Miami is being criticized for how they voted. More than 95 percent of Roberts County voters cast their ballot for President-Elect Donald Trump, the highest of any county in the United States.

President-elect Donald Trump will host a new round of rallies in the coming weeks to celebrate his 2016 election win, according to one of his top aides. George Gigicos, the head of the Trump advance team, spoke to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City Thursday, where he said their team is working on "the victory tour now." He asked Trump's former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who was behind him, to ask when the tour would be happening. She came forward to reporters and said, "'Thank you tour.' It's not a 'victory tour,'" to which Gigicos...

We’re working on a victory tour now; it will happen in the next couple of weeks,” Gigicos told reporters at Trump Tower on Thursday, per the presidential transition pool report. Gigicos said Trump’s victory tour will start some time “after Thanksgiving.” He did not identify any of the places Trump plans to visit but said they would focus on “the swing states we flipped over” and other places where Trump scored wins on Election Day last week.

On Thursday morning the "Today" show had a segment with a psycologist who was there to guide parents on how to explain Hillary Clinton's loss to their children. "Well that is interesting, they sure didn't have a child psycologist on to explain to my children the loss of Mitt Romney, or John McCain. You just simply did not have that," said a suburban mother sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office with the morning show streaming on the television. The young mother, an IT professional who lives in Pittsburgh, the "Paris of Appalachia," said she was stunned once...

Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's upset presidential election win has dominated global headlines, but for those against capital punishment, Election Day offered other surprise: three states voted to reinstate or otherwise support the death penalty. The measures voted through in Oklahoma, Nebraska and California via referendum are not expected to spark a sharp rise in the number of executions, but activists say they are a step in the wrong direction. "Those states have chosen a failed, broken policy when they had the chance to move towards a new dawn," said Shari Silberstein, director of the advocacy group Equal Justice USA....

Donald Trump’s presidential victory not only helped preserve the Republican Party’s majority in the Senate, but it also buoyed the GOP’s control of state legislatures. Republicans now hold an all-time high of 68 out of 99 state legislative chambers, The Associated Press reported. Republicans also have control of both chambers in 33 states, up from 31. In Kentucky, Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo was ousted along with 15 other Democratic incumbents, effectively ending 95 years of control of the state house. -

Donald Trump’s presidential victory not only helped preserve the Republican Party’s majority in the Senate, but it also buoyed the GOP’s control of state legislatures. Republicans now hold an all-time high of 68 out of 99 state legislative chambers, The Associated Press reported. Republicans also have control of both chambers in 33 states, up from 31.

Even the town with perhaps the deepest historical ties to the Clintons voted for Donald Trump in Tuesday's election. The county that surrounds Hope, Ark. -- the birthplace and boyhood home of Bill Clinton, in the state where the Clintons made their political name -- backed Trump by an overwhelming two-to-one margin. According to state data, a total of 62.45 percent of voters in Hempstead County went for Trump, to Hillary Clinton’s 33.72 percent. The state of Arkansas as a whole voted along the same lines, with 60.59 percent voting for Trump and 33.65 percent voting for Clinton.

History was made Tuesday in both the Commonwealth and the nation. A political outsider won the Presidency and did so while ignoring conventional political wisdom regarding campaign tactics. More importantly for the commonwealth, a seismic political shockwave was felt across our state. I referred to it on election night as a historical roar of the people not dissimilar from that once referenced by Winston Churchill. By now you've likely heard the numbers. For the first time in 95 years, Kentucky Republicans have a majority in the House. This new reality, along with the unity we now share in the...

The polls have closed and the electoral firewall Hillary was banking on to prevent the Barbarian from crashing the gates and taking over — Results are all over the place. She's up. She's down. It's too close to call. I'm flashing back to game seven in Cleveland last week, when the Cubs had a three-run lead. Nate Silver: "We're in a state of suspended animation right now . . . no major state has fallen to Clinton." "Uh-oh. I'm starting to feel panic set in." My editor's pacing around in a state of terror. Texts are now pouring in from...

Go to this site, Politico or any of the others featuring presidential maps. They have finally called Alaska for Donald Trump, not that the result was ever in doubt, but it just shows the bile of the media. Meanwhile, Arizona is still in doubt even with Trump's solid lead. So is Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire, with Hillary holding a steady but still narrow lead in only the last two.And didn't Trump actually win one electoral vote in Maine's 2nd congressional district? Or is that still undecided? Maine is solid Clinton colored.Does it really kill them that much to admit...

A new Arizona poll by Phoenix-based consulting firm Data Orbital gives Donald Trump a 45 percent to 41 percent lead over Hillary Clinton in their U.S. presidential battle. That is within the 550-person poll’s margin of error....

Real Estate Mogul and Republican Presidential nominee Donald J Trump has surged to a twelve point lead in Texas over Former Secretary of State and Democrat nominee, Hillary R. Clinton in the latest KTVT CBS 11 Dixie Strategies Poll. If the presidential election were held today, about 52 percent of likely general election voters said they would vote for Trump while just over 39 percent said they would vote for Clinton. This marks the first time Trump has polled over 50 percent in Texas and casts doubt on any Democratic victory on November 8.

DALLAS FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — Real Estate Mogul and Republican Presidential nominee Donald J Trump has surged to a twelve point lead in Texas over Former Secretary of State and Democrat nominee, Hillary R. Clinton in the latest KTVT CBS 11 Dixie Strategies Poll. If the presidential election were held today, 52 percent of likely general election voters said they would vote for Trump while 39 percent said they would vote for Clinton. This marks the first time Trump has polled over 50 percent in Texas and casts doubt on any Democratic victory on November

The article about this POLL is dated 10-20-16, 10 DAYS AGO....IT was linked on their front page TODAY & was taken ***10-10-16 through 10-15-16*** and has an undecided of 20%. The 20% undecided are composed of 26% Independents, 19% Republicans and 14% of Democrats THE IN THE POLL HAS DATA IN IT BETWEEN 2 AND 3 WEEKS OLD Their switchboard number: 602-444-8000 Their email address is: newstips@arizonarepublic.com.

Editor's Note: This piece was co-authored by Jon Schweppe. "It's over. Trump can't win." That's the narrative the Clinton campaign and the mainstream media have relentlessly promoted over the past several days. The problem with that narrative is that it is a bald-faced lie. This election is nowhere near over. Not even close! Let's take a look at theÂ electoral map. Remember, to become the next president of the United States, Trump needs to win 270 electoral votes. Conversely, he needs to hold Hillary Clinton to 269 electoral votes because, with a Republican House of Representatives, a 269-269 tie is...

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has launched a historic bid to win the deeply Republican state of Texas in a bid to destroy Donald Trump's chances of becoming president. Mrs Clinton committed $1.5 million to begin running television advertisements in the Lone Star state, which is usually ignored by Democratic presidential nominees who have not won it for 40 years. Texas has 38 votes in the presidential electoral college, the second biggest number of any state after California. A candidate needs 270 to win. Targeting Texas amounted to a political "decapitation strategy" by taking the biggest Republican state....

Donald Trump must not be president. Alabama has voted for every Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan, a man that captured our imagination with a hopeful view of America as a shining city upon a hill. Nearly 40 years later, Donald Trump offers a deeply cynical view of an America in ruin, an America that seems to exist only in his own dangerous mind. Even before the revelation of video evidence of Trump making lewd, demeaning comments advocating sexual advances on women against their will, we knew that he was unfit to lead this country. We unite with people across this...

Despite resistance by Idaho’s top political leaders, 118 Syrian refugees have moved to the Gem State since last Oct. 1, all of them settling in Boise, according to new data from the State Department. Compared with larger cities, Boise took in a disproportionate share, accepting more than twice as many refugees as New York, with 9, and Los Angeles, with 45, combined. ... Overall, the United States had admitted 11,469 Syrian refugees as of Sept. 9, ... no state took in more Syrian refugees than California, with 1,300. San Diego accepted more than half of them, or 690, while Sacramento...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The 2016 Presidential campaign entered the home stretch on Monday as both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump focused on the battleground state of Ohio. Meantime, the race in Indiana is all but over. Donald Trump is popular in the state and the addition of Mike Pence to the GOP ticket has made him even more popular. A new poll published by Reuters shows that Indiana is likely out of reach for Hillary Clinton. It shows Trump with 56 percent of the vote in Indiana if the election were held now. Hillary Clinton would receive just 32 percent....

Update 2:45 p.m: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plane landed in Austin a little after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, kicking off a campaign swing through the capital of Texas. Meantime, lines had begun forming hours earlier outside ACL Live at Moody Theater in downtown Austin, where Trump will tape a two-hour special with Fox News personality Sean Hannity that will air over two nights. Protesters and Trump supporters sparred as the line grew blocks long, with opponents chanting “Love trumps hate” and waving signs that included “Hill yes” and “Inbreds 4 Trump.” “You must be on welfare if you love Hillary,”...

Over the last 30 years or so, one aspect of presidential elections has been pretty consistent. The GOP nominee usually doesn’t have to break a sweat to carry the southern states. From 1980 through 2004, with two notable exceptions – Jimmy Carter’s home state of Georgia in 1980 and a few states during southern-boy Bill Clinton’s two runs – Republicans enjoyed complete dominance in the swath of states from Virginia to Texas That may be changing. This year’s battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is unusual to say the least. Not in my lifetime have two candidates with unfavorables...

ASKED by an out-of-stater where the nearest shooting range is, Patrick Leavitt, an affable gunsmith at Riverman Gun Works in Coeur d’Alene, says: “This is Idaho—you can shoot pretty much anywhere away from buildings.” That is one reason why the sparsely populated state is attracting a growing number of “political refugees” keen to slip free from bureaucrats in America’s liberal states, says James Wesley, Rawles (yes, with a comma), an author of bestselling survivalist novels. In a widely read manifesto posted in 2011 on his survivalblog.com, Mr Rawles, a former army intelligence officer, urged libertarian-leaning Christians and Jews to move...

...an economist would say this happens because of inefficiency, and the failure of manufacturing is all part of the “creative destruction” that is an essential engine of capitalism. But what I have seen here in the heartland of the United States is only the destruction; the creation takes place offshore. Making a god of efficiency denigrates the much more important goal of effectiveness. Efficiency (as Peter Drucker writes) is doing the thing right, while effectiveness is doing the right thing. Of course, ideologues firmly believe that effectiveness is purely automatic: Progress is inevitable! But that is not the reality I...

It’s becoming pretty clear that, like their Democrat forefathers, today’s Democrats are convinced that America is entirely too free and that they must take their blue states and secede. We normals no longer meet their high moral standards, what with our insistence on believing in God, having a voice in our governance, and our primitive desire not to have men lurking in women’s restrooms. Plus guns. Fine. Let them go. Good riddance. We’ll be able to pray and have our voices heard by government even as we continue to embrace anti-#Science concepts like chromosomes determining your sex. Plus guns. You...

As if the election results weren't enough proof that Donald Trump absolutely dominated Appalachia, this map offers a pretty good picture of just how widespread the presumptive GOP nominee's support is in the region:

The owner of Jamba Juice, which makes specialty beverage and food items including fruit smoothies, will move its headquarters from Emeryville to a Dallas suburb over the next six months, the company announced. Jamba Inc. chief executive David Pace said in a press release and a regulatory filing that the high cost of doing business in the Bay Area is a large reason why the company is moving to Frisco, Texas.

Idaho moved a step closer to “Constitutional” or permitless carry on 14 March, 2016. The Idaho Senate passed SB 1389 27-8. The bill would remove the ban on the carry of concealed weapons inside city limits in Idaho, for those people over 21 who can legally possess firearms but do not have a concealed carry permit.Residents of Idaho already have the right to carry concealed weapons in 99% of the state. This small incremental step places Idaho with eight other states that have restored most of “Constitutional carry” the state of law that existed when the Bill of Rights...

New numbers from the Census Bureau on how many people move from state to state underscore another aspect of the right-to-work debate that does not often take center stage: Americans continue to move to right-to-work states. The Mackinac Center has long viewed changes in the number of people in a state as perhaps the single best tool for measuring the quality of life there. After all, there are reasons people pack up and move, and those reasons reflect an individualâ€™s self-interest. Economic opportunities are a clear reason to move, as are amenities such as access to coastal waters or more...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz arrived Jan. 4 at the first stop on a six-day tour of Iowa. The Republican presidential candidate was set to visit 28 counties by bus. (Photo by Patrick Svitek) WASHINGTON â€” In the more than 200 events he's heldÂ since launching his campaign for the White House 10 months ago, Ted Cruz has testedÂ out an unorthodox strategy, one that could rewrite the rules of Republican presidential politics.Since the Texas senator declared his candidacy in March, 40 percent of his public events have taken place in Iowa,Â according to a Texas Tribune analysis ofÂ his travel scheduleÂ as of Saturday.Â But...

Rubio wants a piece of the March states too, but his rivals have the momentum. "Amongst a lot of the grassroots, Sen. Cruz is definitely picking up momentum, there's no doubt about it," said Ryan Haynes, the unaligned chairman of the Tennessee GOP. NASHVILLE, Tenn.:The battle for the South has settled into a race between two candidates, and neither is Marco Rubio. In interviews with more than two dozen party officials, political operatives and activists, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were repeatedly named as front-runners and likely winners in one of the most conservative regions of the country. Both contenders...

The far-right wing in both America and Europe have seized on the Paris terror attacks as an excuse to turn away the thousands of desperate refugees who are fleeing the terror and violence of ISIS. Thirteen American governors (all Republican) have announced they will refuse to accept Syrian refugees in their states, demonstrating a remarkable ignorance of Constitutional law. As ThinkProgress noted, "the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, "the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution." States do not get...

New York Times ^ | November 12, 2015 | By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ALAN BLINDER

LEXINGTON, Ky. â€” Young, telegenic and news media savvy, State Auditor Adam Edelen looked like a shoo-in for re-election when Democrats gathered in a horse barn here for a buffet dinner late last month. Most figured he would go on to challenge Senator Rand Paul, whose Republican presidential bid is faltering even as he seeks re-election. From Our Advertisers Now a Paul-Edelen matchup is off the table. Kentucky Democrats, including Mr. Edelen, were trounced last week in an election that swept aside decades of their dominance over state government â€” and added Mr. Edelen to a growing list of Democrats...

The so-called “progressives” love to talk about how their policies will create a worker’s paradise, but then why is it that day after day, month after month, year after year, people are fleeing liberal blue states for conservative red states? The new Census data on where we live and where we moved to in 2014 shows that the top seven states with the biggest percentage increase in in-migration from other states are in order: North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. All of these states are red, except Colorado, which is purple. Meanwhile the leading exodus states...

The so-called “progressives” love to talk about how their policies will create a worker’s paradise, but then why is it that day after day, month after month, year after year, people are fleeing liberal blue states for conservative red states? The new Census data on where we live and where we moved to in 2014 shows that the top seven states with the biggest percentage increase in in-migration from other states are in order: North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. All of these states are red, except Colorado, which is purple. Meanwhile the leading exodus states...

Here is the Trump political logic: “Alabama is extremely critical,” a close associate of Trump’s told me (actually, we agreed I’d call him “a close associate of Mr. Trump”). “You have Iowa’s caucus on February 1st, New Hampshire on the 9th, and South Carolina on the 27th .” The race, this associate explained, would not be wrapped up by then. According to this political calculus, the crucial moment arrives three days later, on March 1st, with the “SEC primary”—the belt of Southern states that encompass the Southeastern Athletic Conference—when Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Arkansas and several others hold their primaries. Trump...

He has crashed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s show in Iowa, knocked former Florida governor Jeb Bush off course in New Hampshire and sucked up most of the political oxygen this summer. Now Donald Trump is headed south. Trump said Wednesday night that that event was switching venues, from a civic center to a football stadium, because he now expects an attendance of 30,000 to 40,000. Some say Trump’s appeal in the region is different, and according to University of Mississippi journalism professor Curtis Wilkie, it has precedent. “There is a history of outrageous politicians who are able to develop a...